Kento Tokuhiro

Career Background

During middle and high school, I was deeply immersed in electronics and microcontroller programming, becoming familiar with hardware creation and low-level software. While majoring in applied physics at university and graduate school, I gained exposure to a wide range of technologies — from hardware to application development — through startup internships and part-time jobs, including cloud-based MLOps infrastructure and embedded systems.

At Aidemy, which provides an AI talent development platform, I was involved in developing and operating an online service for learning machine learning and data science. This gave me end-to-end experience not just in building software but in delivering it as a service. Being in an environment focused on deploying AI in society gave me a strong passion for connecting cutting-edge technology to real-world problem solving.

With this background, I was drawn to the theme of ‘moving the physical world with software’ and wanted to take on the highly challenging field of fully autonomous driving as a new graduate. I joined Turing in April 2022 and currently work on the Driving System team, developing the computing systems for autonomous vehicles.

Why I Joined Turing

My first encounter with startups was in university, where I discovered the excitement of delivering technology as a business. I was drawn to software development involving hardware, the need to craft autonomous driving as an experience, and the prospect of releasing it as a product to the world, which led me to join.

What I Do

• Team roadmap planning and execution, hiring, and team building management
• Architecture design and implementation of computing systems for autonomous vehicles
• Specification coordination and interface design in collaboration with related teams

What Makes My Work Rewarding

• Code I write can be running a real vehicle the very next day — I get to experience the sensation of software changes translating into physical movement.
• Being able to view sensor configurations, in-vehicle computers, and cloud-side training infrastructure as one system and be involved from overall design.
• Enjoying the process itself — repeatedly experimenting and validating in uncharted territory, gradually improving accuracy and reliability.

About the Work Environment at Turing

• In a lab-like office with prototype and test vehicles right nearby, you can discuss software while looking at the actual vehicles.
• Experts across every layer — AI, hardware, software, infrastructure — are on the same floor, creating an environment where you can easily consult and discuss.
• An atmosphere where people are evaluated fairly based on their skills and output, regardless of whether they are new graduates, mid-career, or of different nationalities.

Who Thrives at Turing

• People who can form their own hypotheses and move forward hands-on even when there are no predetermined right answers.
• People flexible enough to think together about ‘so what do we do now’ even when specs change or assumptions are overturned.
• People who value team discussions and documentation as much as writing code.
• People interested not only in technology but also in business and organizational phases, with a mindset of building the company together.

For Those Considering Turing

I want to work with people who genuinely want to see a world where fully autonomous driving is truly deployed in society. You need to find and define challenges yourself, involve colleagues while deciding how to solve them, and there will be many failures. Rather than being attached to a specific technology stack, I think people who get excited about ‘solving this hard problem together as a team’ will thrive at Turing.

Career-wise, while not everything, you can gain experience across multiple layers including software, hardware, AI, and infrastructure, making it an unbeatable environment for those who want to rapidly build their foundational skills as engineers.

My Car

Honda Civic (6MT)

I have always wanted cars to be something fun to interact with as machines rather than just a means of transportation, so I chose the 6MT Civic where my pedal and shift inputs are directly reflected. The sounds and vibrations when revving the engine, the sensation of selecting gears while feeling the load in corners — it gives me a sense of ‘operating a system’ that is different from writing software at work, and I love it. Precisely because I am developing autonomous driving, I also want to sharpen my understanding of the joy of human driving.

Cars I’d Like to Drive

In the near future, I want to try the Civic Type R, the pinnacle of the Civic lineup. My current Civic is plenty of fun, but I want to experience firsthand how I can handle with my own hands and feet the chassis and engine that push FF to such an extraordinary level.